Golden
Age Superman rules! I love comic books from this era, and nobody did
them better than DC did. I love the old cars, the old fashions, the
old slang, and the might makes right attitude that Superman had. It's
completely inappropriate here in the second decade of the21st
century, but I love it nonetheless.

That Clark Kent knows how to put Lois Lane in her place. No tofu-eating, sensitive girly-man here, no siree.

Superman
is essentially a bully here, pushing people around. Only a
super-powered Lex Luthor and Metalo give Superman a run for his
money. The rest of the time Clark Kent just tries to convince Lois
Lane that he is not Superman, and when he is Superman he is busy
crashing through walls instead of using doors or windows.

Shades of Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon!

A
few elements that came to define the character are presented here for
the first time. Unless I'm mistaken, the first time that Superman
utters the iconic phrase “Up- up- and away!” occurs in this book. I don't recall him saying it in the comics
before, and I even tried Google-ing it, to no avail.

Superman
still isn't flying per se', just doing extremely high leaps that are
looking more and more like flight. Unlike you new jack Superman
fans, my Superman doesn't fly.

This is not the first time that Superman has used his powers for breaking and entering or rifling through confidential files.

Another
mainstay, the Fortress of Solitude, makes it's first appearance in
issue 17. Superman visits his then-currently under construction
mountain fortress hideaway. It is not actually called the Fortress of
Solitude here, nor is it made of crystal...or located in the Arctic.

Junk
Food For Thought rating: 5 out of 5.

The
OCD zone- The nice thing about these Chronicles is that
they are value priced collections of vintage material. Think of them
as 2/5 thickness full color phone books.

The
cover image has some of the most godawful pixelation that I've ever
seen. DC needs to stop letting the interns work on their collected
editions. This is getting embarrassing.

Linework
restoration rating: 4 out of 5. This is some uneven restoration.
Some issues look great, most are serviceable, while others look
godawful.

Color
restoration rating: 4 out of 5. The color palette is faithful to
the original publication...to a point. Some color choices here are
just plain stupid, not just CMYK percentage miscalculations. In
Action Comics No. 61, most of the
colors are as faithful as possible. The desk on page 3 is miscolored
pink instead of brown...four times on the same page. Things
like that make no sense, especially when every other color on the
page is done correctly. I am not certain if this is an isolated
incident, or if there are mistakes like this all over the book. I
compared this book to scans of the original comics online. Scans that
I got...when they fell off a truck. Yeah, a truck. That's the ticket.

There
also occasional gradient shadings, which annoys the piss out of me.
It's just cheap, lazy coloring. The colorist responsible for the work
let the computer fill in the shading rather than doing it by “hand”
on computer. Their way is faster and cheaper but it sticks out like a
sore thumb to me. Your mileage may vary.

Paper
rating: 3 out of 5. The mando/pulp paper has zero glare and is
very easy on the eyes. I have first printings of all of these
Chronicles, and the older ones are already beginning to
yellow. This is horrible, the worst aspect of old comics brought into
the realm of collected editions. DC fans tend to be overly nostalgic
in terms of presentation, wanting the paper in collected editions to
be every bit as crappy as that found in the original publication.
Thanks, but no thanks.

Cardstock
cover coating rating: 3 out of 5. (*shudders*) The white has that
weird, almost uncoated frosted glass feeling to it. Worse still, it
easily scuffed, with minor imperfections evident even when handled
gingerly for a single reading. The portions that have color (i.e. the
character image and text) have a thin, rubbery screen coating. It
just feels weird and unpleasant.